Tuberculosis in Poland in 2018.

AIM OF THE STUDY

To evaluate the main features of tuberculosis (TB) epidemiology in 2018 in Poland and to compare with the situation in the EU/EEA countries.

METHODS

Analysis of case- based data on TB patients from National TB Register, data on anti-TB drug susceptibility testing results in cases notified in 2018, data from National Institute of Public Health- National Institute of Hygiene on HIV-positive subjects for whom TB was an AIDS-defining disease, data from Central Statistical Office on deaths from tuberculosis based on death certificates, data from the report " European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control/WHO Regional Office for Europe. Tuberculosis surveillance and monitoring in Europe 2020- 2018 data. Stockholm: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2020".

RESULTS

In 2018, 5487 TB cases were reported in Poland. The incidence rate was 14.3 cases per 100000, with large variability between voivodeships from 7.3 to 23.4 per 100 000. The mean annual decrease of TB incidence in 2014- 2018 was 3.8%. In 2018, 4852 cases were newly diagnosed with no history of previous treatment i.e. 12.6 per 100 000. 635 cases i.e. 1.7 per 100 000 - 11.6% of all registered subjects were previously treated for tuberculosis. In 2018, the number of all pulmonary tuberculosis cases was 5224 i.e. 13.7 per 100000. Pulmonary cases represented 95.2% of all TB cases. In 2018, 243 extrapulmonary TB cases were found i.e. 0.6 per 100 000. In the whole country there were 52 pediatric cases of tuberculosis. TB in children represented 0.9% of all cases notified in Poland in 2018. The incidence rates of tuberculosis were growing along with the age group from 0.9 per 100 000 among children to 24.7 per 100 000 among subjects in the age group 45-64 years (the highest incidence rate). In 2018, the incidence rate in the age group ≥65 years was 21.3 per 100 000. The TB incidence among men i.e. 21.0 per 100 000 was 2.6 times higher than among women i.e. 8.0 per 100 000. The biggest difference in the TB incidence between the two sex groups occurred in persons aged 55 to 59 years - 44.9 vs. 9.8 and in age group 60- 64 years - 43.7 vs. 10.2. The TB incidence in rural population was lower than in urban, respectively 13.4 per 100 000 and 14.9 per 100 000. The number of all registered culture positive TB cases was 4075. Pulmonary tuberculosis was bacteriologically confirmed in 3935 subjects. Cases confirmed by culture represented 74.3% of all TB cases and 75.3% of all pulmonary TB cases. The number of smear-positive pulmonary TB cases reported in 2018 was 2324 i.e. 6.1 per 100 000 accounting for 44.3% of all pulmonary TB cases and 59.1% of pulmonary TB cases confirmed by culture. In all patients with tuberculosis in Poland in 2018 there were 48 cases with MDR-TB (among them 14 foreigners) and 83 patients with resistance to isoniazid only, representing respectively 1.3% and 2.2% of cases with known DST results (DSTs were available in 90.7% of all culture-confirmed TB cases). In 2018, there were 97 patients of foreign origin among all cases of tuberculosis in Poland. TB was AIDS-indicative disease in 14 subjects with HIV co-infection. There were 490 deaths due to tuberculosis reported in 2017 - 1.3 per 100 000; 468 people died from pulmonary and 22 from extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Mortality among males - 2.1 per 100 000 - was 3.6 X higher than among females - 0.5. 40.2% of all TB deaths were cases 65 years old and older - 3.1 per 100 000. In 2017, there was no death from tuberculosis in children and no deaths in adolescents. In 2017, tuberculosis represented 0.1% of total mortality in Poland and 25.4% of mortality from infectious and parasitic diseases.

CONCLUSIONS

In 2018, the incidence of tuberculosis in Poland was lower than in 2017. Despite a continuous decline it is still higher than the average in the EU/EEA countries. The highest incidence rates were observed in older age groups. The participation of pediatric cases is smaller than average in the EU/EEA countries. The incidence in males was more than 2 times higher than in females. The impact of migration on the characteristics of tuberculosis in Poland is not substantial. In Poland, MDR-TB is less common than the average in the EU/EEA countries.